The time I almost didn't make it to Switzerland.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone. My name is Guyomar, and I’d like to take you elsewhere with me. Today we’re visiting Switzerland, well, my memories of Switzerland. I never planned to go to Switzerland, and I haven’t spent very much time there, but I ended up visiting once because I was invited by a friend, a classmate, who, when she learned that I was going to be Paris, said, “Oh, why don’t you come over? Why don’t you come and stay with my parent, stay my parents’ place in Switzerland?” And of course, I said yes, without giving it very much thought. I remember that it didn’t even cross my mind that I would need a special visa to enter Switzerland, though I did. It’s astonishingly lucky that I made it there as I planned, because it was truly a last-minute scramble to get my visa. It involved an unplanned trip to New York, where I wasn’t living, and where I had to go present myself at the Swiss Embassy, but that’s another story. I was a little irresponsible as an undergrad, very head in the clouds. Still am, in some ways. But I remember being astonished by how beautiful Switzerland was, and I have a very vivid memory of biking there.

I don’t usually ride bikes, and I hadn’t biked since my childhood. So it was truly a memorable experience to get to know the surroundings: the lakes, the fields…for the most part, there was no one else on the road. I was riding alone. Almost no cars went by, and I remember feeling incredibly free, optimistic, fresh-minded. I got a little carried away and wasn’t really paying attention, and I remember falling down, falling off the bike, but it didn’t spoil my day, my ride, my mood. It was an incredibly beautiful, reinvigorating place to go after a really busy semester. 

I think that when I left, I was in a really great state of mind to begin my work. There are places like that, that just make you feel renewed, refreshed, energetic. They’re very peaceful. They’re still. They’re calm. And when you’ve been there a few days, suddenly you feel better than ever, and that’s how I remember Switzerland. That’s all for today. We’ll talk next time. Bye!

Falling off a bike in Switzerland (click here for the transcript)

Here's where solitude will lead you.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. Today, I’d like to take you to the Solitude leads us. There have been times in my life when I’ve decided not to give anyone priority, not to put anyone above my principles, my goals, my work and interests. It wasn’t particularly difficult because most of my life, I can’t say that I’ve been a very sociable person. I can occupy myself, entertain myself alone. I don’t need company as much as some others do. There are times when I can spend days on end by myself, without any significant interaction with another person, and be OK. I might even quite enjoy it. So, sometimes I don’t even intend to not make people a priority, and it just turns out that way. But, there have been times when I have allowed myself to get closer to people in relationships, in friendships, in which I’ve rearranged my priorities, adjusted my goals, my expectations, questioned my principles and values, because of my affection for those people. Every time, I’ve regretted it. Every time, I’ve realized that you have to trust your own principles, and prioritize what you want to get out of this life, because your time is limited. There’s so much to do, not enough time to do it all, and one can’t allow oneself distractions. There’s nothing noble about prioritizing somebody else’s values, about being weak in your own principles, about telling yourself they’re not so important because you want to please someone else, because you’re momentarily blinded by affection. It’s never a good idea. Principles are all that remain. You never know other people. If you do know them, who knows whether you’ll know them a year from now? It’s never, ever a good idea. That’s where solitude takes you. When you spend enough time away from others, away from the distractions, away from relationships, you get to observe the world, the way people behave, what motivates them, and you realize it’s all one big distraction. You realize how much energy, emotion, time goes into this. Time that you’ll never get back.  That’s where solitude takes you. Maybe it’s sad. I don’t know. I think it’s clarity.

The places Solitude leads us (click here for the transcript)

The city was the same, I was the same, but the way I saw it had changed --- dramatically.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G.  Today, I’d like to tell you about how our perception can influence our experience of a place. When I was little, I was convinced that London, England, was a wonderful place. I went there quite frequently, because I had family living there, and I always looked forward to the trip. It had many things that I appreciated as a small child – material attractions that one couldn’t find in Mauritius at the time. The food seemed more familiar to me than what was available in Mauritius, because my mum didn’t cook typical Mauritian recipes. The way they spoke English was much more familiar to me, because I remember struggling in Mauritius with the accent and with the way people spoke, because obviously, that wasn’t what I heard when I spoke to my mum, and it was just destabilizing. Maybe destabilizing is too strong a word; it was just a bit weird, always being the one who didn’t speak like the others in English class.

So, I liked being in a place where people spoke in a way that seemed normal to me. And what else? I liked that people seemed relaxed, seemed to be sociable, seemed to have friends beyond their immediate family. My perception of London at the time, before I was eleven or twelve, was influenced by my mother, who had had a great time working, and living there, who is a British citizen, and who always said that being in England was much better than being in Mauritius. And then, something weird happened. I remember really looking forward to the trip one year – oh, I forgot to mention, that, of course, the other thing we couldn’t get that easily in Mauritius were high-quality toys. I really liked a toy called Polly Pocket. It isn’t what you find in stores today. Polly Pockets were these tiny, well, not tiny, these small boxes that could hold in the palm of your hand, and each one was themed. There was one that was shaped like a flower, and when you opened it, there was this beautiful, painted natural setting, and little figurines that you could place in various places. Sometimes, they made it quite fancy. I had one of a cathedral, where you could place the prince and the princess in front of it, and make them dance by pressing something. I can’t remember now. Anyway, I loved Polly Pocket, and couldn’t find them in Mauritius. Like I said, a child’s dream, being able to buy toys in London, dolls or Polly Pockets especially.

Yes, but, one year, I was about twelve. I wanted badly to go to England. We planned the trip. It just wasn’t like before. I remember thinking that I don’t know what I had seen before, how it could have seemed so magical to me, because it certainly didn’t seem magical now. It seemed crowded, dirty. I wasn’t a fan of spending my time the way people around me were spending their time. I started to distinguish between different kinds of accents, even within the same country, and found that some were grating, while others were more pleasing. It was a perception that I didn’t have before. I felt that I couldn’t see it the way that I used to, just a year ago, and that was very sad. I kept hoping that something would change, that one year, I’d go back, and that it would be wonderful, magical, and special again, but it never was. Now I can’t say that I particularly like London. I wouldn’t go there if I didn’t have a good reason to. It’s really sad, I think, when you start to notice things, or you learn more about a place. You start to see it the way other people do, maybe more knowledgeable people, and you lose the ability to find those little moments of joy or silly pleasures like the Polly Pockets.

So that’s my story for today. Have you ever had this experience, where suddenly a place that you loved looked completely different to you, to the point where you didn’t want to return? I’ll see you in the next one. Bye!

Losing London (click here for the transcript)

When you can't quite escape the things you disliked the most about the place where you grew up, and cringe when you find them exactly where you would have predicted to.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’m going to share with you an experience of mine that might sound a bit like a rant, because it sort of it is. I’m a little bit irritated and I want to vent. It’s also a bit first-world-problemish, you know, it’s not a serious problem, but I suspect quite a few of you might be able to relate to it. It’s about stereotype, about people who fit stereotypes, and about expectations of privacy in different cultures.

I grew up in a culture where people were always trying to mind your business. You couldn’t walk around, you couldn’t go out, you couldn’t take two steps without the neighbors gossiping about you, without them trying to pry into how much money you make, who you’re dating, who you’re married to, where you’re going on holiday, where you live exactly, personal stuff right off the bat, the moment they meet you, and I don’t like that. I am quite a reserved, private person. I like to take time to get to know people.

I think that I have a good sense of when somebody is uncomfortable with questions I’m asking them, and I won’t push people to answer questions they don’t want to answer, and I sort of expect that everybody has that sensibility, but it’s not the case, you know, some people seem oblivious to the fact they’re asking you questions you don’t want to answer, that are personal, that they shouldn’t be pursuing. 

For the most part, since I’ve lived abroad, this isn’t something that I’ve had to deal with it, because in the cultures that I’ve lived in, that I’ve sought of, people share this expectation of privacy. It was very rare that people asked me how much I paid for rent, how much I was earning, what else? How much I was earning, whether I was dating anyone, whether I was married, whether I was engaged, where exactly I lived right off the bat…and I liked it that way. I like pleasant interactions with people I don’t know, but nothing prying or deep. 

Sometimes, I’ll come across people in public, in cafes, occasionally in restaurants, and I have an assumption about where the owner or people who work there are from. I decide to give them a chance anyway, because it’s not nice to stereotype people. If I like the look of the place, I’ll give it a try, and my hope is that people will just treat me like anyone else, but unfortunately, in many of these cases, people from a certain cultural background – I’m not going to say which one it is, in fact, it’s not a single one, there are quite a few cultures that are like this, but anyway, I don’t want to upset people – unfortunately live up to that terrible stereotype of being nosy, prying, having no boundaries, and I think that’s very unfortunate. I’m always very disappointed when it happens.  I feel very let down. I feel angry at myself, at them, for having given them a chance.

It happened to me recently. So, I’d been to this café a handful of times in the course of a year, and I liked the vibe. I liked the place. I just wanted to go there to read, listen to a podcast, drink something – drink some coffee or tea – and relax. The owner is from one of those cultures where people have the reputation of being nosy. I’d got a hint of that the first time, because very quickly, they wanted to know whether I was on holiday, whether I was living there, and I just let it go, because I think they were busy and they didn’t have time to linger and ask too much, but today they really took it too far. So, like I said, these aren’t really people that I know at all. I don’t think seeing somebody every two months as a customer – every two months or less – is any kind of meaningful relationship. 

For the rest, comment below and let me know you'd like to read it!

The frustrating places prying questions take us (click here for the transcript)

When the "grief" of spectators overshadows the event itself.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. Today, I’d like to talk to you about the place that emotional performances take us when we view them in a group. When I was growing up, I hated watching melodramatic, or simply dramatic, or otherwise sad movies with anyone. When I watched them with my parents or even with my friends, I always felt like I had to make a joke, or downplay what was happening, or make a comment about how it wasn’t realistic or how it was exaggerated. I remember feeling very irritated when the people watching the movie with me showed emotion, teared up, or made comments about how terribly sad it all was.

I was thinking about why it bothered me so much, because it’s not that I don’t like emotional movies, emotional performances. In fact, if I watch them by myself, alone, I’m quite likely to tear up. It’s when I’m watching them with a crowd, and there’s a certain expected reaction that I close myself off, that I can no longer be influenced by the emotion, that I can no longer feel what the performer wants to transmit.

And I think that in a time when many tragic, or simply sad events are experienced publicly through social media, you know, with people sharing, re-sharing stories, videos, pictures, and giving their take on the event, I think that some people, including me, have become numb to the tragedy, and instead of feeling emotion that we might feel if we read about the event, and not so much the reactions of others and how much it’s affected them – and by others, I don’t mean victims, I mean bystanders, or people who weren’t even there but who saw what happened afterwards, through pictures, videos, or simply heard about it. 

So, I think the problem is that there’s so much focus on how the event has affected witnesses – far-removed witnesses – that it’s all about the performance of a reaction, all about how we’re supposed to reaction, the appropriate amount of emotion and sadness that we’re supposed to feel, and for me anyway, it has quite the opposite effect. Instead of feeling sad, I feel irritated by what I’m supposed to feel, and by what I consider to be faux-sadness. Sadness that’s not real, that won’t last beyond the catastrophe, that’s more for show, for approval from others, for social identity, than about a genuine engagement with the trauma of the event.

Anyway, I know that’s a controversial opinion, and I’ve read all the articles about how we shouldn’t shame people for being affected by something. I’m not shaming people for being affected. I just don’t believe that most people really are affected; not to the extent they claim to be. And I wish we’d be more private in our sadness, because I think it would be far more genuine.

The shared experience of emotional performances (click here for the transcript)

Language as a conduit to unfamiliar ideas and places you've never been. 

TRANSCRIPT

Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. Today I’m going to share with you the places languages can take us. I’ve had a few conversations with people who ask me why I learn so many languages. They ask me whether it gets difficult to manage the different languages. They truly look a little skeptical when I tell them that this is one of my hobbies, that this is something that I do for pleasure, for entertainment, that this is fun for me. So, I’ve had a few conversations with people who see the fact that we speak different languages, who see linguistic diversity as a problem to be resolved by technology or by laws will that create a universal language, that will make it such that we all speak one language or that we can access automatic instantaneous translations, so that when somebody speaks in a language that we don’t know, we will hear our own language and understand them right away. These people see this as a great thing, as a wonderful thing. Personally, I don’t share that point of view. I don’t see linguistic diversity as a problem to be resolved.

Honestly, I can’t imagine a world where we all speak one language. I think that you’d be erasing a whole record of history, of regional, geographical particularities by imposing a single language, and I don’t think it would work, because people would use the language in such a way that reflected their habits, their geography, their culture, and even if you imposed one language, it would change. It would change over time, gradually perhaps, but eventually, you would have different languages again, as we do now, to reflect the inherent diversity in the world, to reflect human diversity. And I think that’s a great thing; I love being able to explore another place, whether it’s going there physically, reading about it, reading the literature produced by writer, music, theatre, opera, films, you know, films, songs…and getting to explore a different place that way, in a way that takes you away from what’s familiar, away from the mundane, away from yourself.

That’s why I learn – I don’t even call it learning languages, honestly, I’ve fallen into the habit of using the term, but no, I don’t learn languages – I enjoy languages. I hope to acquire them while enjoying them, but no, I don’t have a strict goal of learning about a language. So that’s why it’s not difficult for me. That’s why it’s a pleasure. It truly is a pleasure and a hobby. It’s wonderful to watch a film in Spanish. It’s incredible to listen to Italians speaking amongst themselves, freely, enthusiastically, naturally, unimpeded by a linguistic barrier. I do things that I would do anyway: learning about the world, learning about people’s thoughts on various topics that I find interesting. I just try to do them in various languages that aren’t my native ones. I think this can take you to so many new places.

Who hasn’t felt bogged down? Who hasn’t felt bogged down by the routine, by the familiar, by the sense that there’s nothing new to discover? Well, if you acquire a different language, a whole new world of literature, art, popular culture even, will open up, and you’ll find some of that delight again. The delight of knowing that there’s still so much, so much to learn, so much to explore and enjoy. That’s all for today. Bye!

The places languages can take us (click here for the transcript)

Going without food for a few more hours, or even a couple of days, isn't extreme. It won't kill you, and in fact, it helps you see more clearly.

TRANSCRIPT
The serene places fasting can take us

Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’d like to tell you about the places that fasting can take us. I didn’t grow up fasting, but I was always aware that it was something that people around me did for religious reasons. The most memorable example I have is of my Muslim friends fasting during Ramadan. I know that they had a feast every day with their family, with their close friends, but nonetheless, it was an all-day fast without water, as well as without food. I had a few Catholic friends as well who fasted, though it was a lot less common. You know, for Lent, they would usually give up something but it wouldn’t be a full-on fast.

A couple of years ago, I became interested in fasting and in the idea that we don’t need to eat so frequently. If you’ve lived in the United States, you know that people are constantly pushing food on you. If you have a meeting, it’s sometimes a lunch meeting. Even if it’s not a lunch meeting, there’ll be snacks. There’ll be pizza, there’ll be cookies, there’ll be donuts…It’s become common, for example, for students to eat during class, during lecture, sometimes even during discussion classes, as if it’s completely normal, because “Oh, I’m hungry, I have to eat now!” I’ve read a number of articles and books that push back against this culture of constantly eating and that argue that it’s not at all necessary. So, I’ve done fasts in the past, you know, three-day fasts, two-day more frequently, but recently I started fasting daily for sixteen hours.

I think it’s one of the easier fasts you can do. Basically, you don’t eat for sixteen hours, so, for example, I’ve just had dinner and I won’t eat until lunch time. And you eat everything that you normally would in an 8-hour window. People have different approaches to how they do it. I do two meals per day. I know other people, some people do one meal a day only. Anyway, when you speak to a lot of people about fasting, they think that it’s starving yourself, that you’re depriving yourself of food, of essential nutrients, that you’re doing something extreme and crazy, when it’s not at all crazy. I know that in college, for example, if I didn’t feel hungry, I just didn’t eat breakfast. If I didn’t get into the habit of snacking mid-morning, of not waiting until a meal, I was fine.

I’ve been fasting daily for a while now, and I think that I actually feel clearer-headed, more concentrated, more focused than when I was having three meals a day, snacks here and there. I feel much calmer, much more stable and able to focus than when I was constantly having a snack whenever I felt like it – and most of the time, I don’t have cravings. I don’t feel that I absolutely need to go and eat something. It’s quite amazing actually, how the more you eat, the more you feel like you need to eat constantly, and the less frequently you eat – over time, you know, I think within a week or maybe a couple of weeks – those feelings subside, and you realize that you’re not hungry and that what you’re doing is fine, and that you’re not going to die if you don’t eat until after class. 

I just wanted to share that with you. I wanted to push back against the idea that we have to eat all the time, that we have to listen to our body, and eat whenever we’re hungry. I don’t agree with that at all. I don’t think that what I’m doing is extreme at all. I feel good. I feel less focused on food. And I feel stable – you know, in a neutral mood – and able to focus on my language acquisition and stories. Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say today. Thanks for listening. Bye!

The serene places fasting can take us (click here for the transcript)

Focusing on love to the detriment of dignity.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone. My name is Guyomar, and you’re listening to Elsewhere with G. Today I’d like to talk to you about the places that rabbis can take us. Sometimes I listen to Rabbi Manis Friedman. He is based in New York and he has some very wise things to say about many topics, I think, but especially about love. He says things that I haven’t heard others talk about, and he does it in such a way that’s quite original. I find the way he uses examples to illustrate his point funny and very individual. There’s this idea in modern marriages, in modern love, that the most important thing is to show love to your children, to your spouse, that long-term, it’s the most important thing. You always have to remind each other, you always have to remind your children that you feel love for them. He says – I’m summarizing his argument – that love is not the most important thing and that’s what we get wrong about relationships in our time.  It’s often the reason why relationships go sour – because we focus on love to the detriment of what really matters, and that’s respect and dignity.

He gave an example that I thought was hilarious. He said that some people, some couples become far too familiar with each other. So, they lounge around the house in pyjamas, in bathrobes, don’t shower, speak to each other any old way, shout at each other from one room to the other – they become too comfortable. They become too familiar and there’s no dignity in that. He said that we’d be unwilling to open the door for somebody delivering a parcel, for example, in a bathrobe. We’d be embarrassed about that, but we don’t seem to have any problem doing it in front of our spouse, when really, that’s the person who matters most.

He thinks that long-term, couple who are successful, whose relationship works, preserve that dignity. They don’t become too familiar with each other. They don’t become lazy in front of each other. They still see the other person as somebody to respect and with whom you can’t just let yourself go completely. You can’t just indulge in all your bad habits and all your bad traits. I think that’s so true. Familiarity and feeling comfortable with another person, and feeling you don’t have to put on pretenses and airs is one of the nice parts of a long-term relationship. 

For the rest, comment below and let me know you’d like the entire transcript.

Rabbis on marriage (click here for the transcript)

Please don't come over unannounced.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’d like to tell you about the places that unexpected guests take us. I haven’t had an unexpected guest for a long time. Usually, nobody comes here because I don’t give out my address very easily and so it was a bit of a surprise this morning when somebody rang the doorbell much earlier than expected, and showed up at our front door. It took me back to when I was growing up, and relatives would just turn up at our doorstep. Well, they’d walk into the garden, and then, even if we were busy, they would hang around near the door, just wait until somebody answered. Then, they’d make themselves at home, stay several hours for tea…you just couldn’t get rid of them even if you had other things to do. It’s been a long time since somebody just dropped in as if they think you’re just going to be there and available, with nothing else to do. Honestly, I don’t miss that kind of culture at all. I didn’t like the fact that people would startle you and show up unannounced, without giving any warning whatsoever. The thing I liked the least was the assumption that you were just going to be available for them, and that they lingered, that they stayed much longer than they should have, instead of being quick, instead of just being considerate, and not putting you in the awkward position of having to shoo them away. I don’t what it’s like in your culture – do people just show up unexpected at friends’ houses, at relatives’ houses, or do people try to plan in advance, be considerate of other people’s time? Are they aware that there are other commitments the person may have, or that maybe they don’t want to be disturbed that day? Maybe they’re taking care of things around the house. Maybe things aren’t ready, in a presentable state for visitors and see, and it’s embarrassing when somebody just comes over. Then it’s a stress for you to have to play host when you weren’t prepared for that.

Anyway, I’m curious to hear your perspectives on this topic. Thank you.

Unexpected guests (click here for the transcript)

Here's why I think it's better to err on the side of humility. It's better to underestimate one's skills than to brashly overestimate them.

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone. You’re listening to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’d like to talk to you about self-congratulation, selling one’s talents or blowing one’s own horn. When I was growing, I was told that you should boast about your own accomplishments; that’s something that you should let other people do for you. It’s boring to listen to somebody talk about all the languages they’ve learned so quickly, so easily, about how many diplomas they hold, what a brilliant recital they gave, how beautifully they sing, and about how gorgeous, perfect and Instagram-worthy their life is. That was what I was brought up with. However, at the time, I, well, none of us participated on social media sites. They didn’t exist or they hadn’t become crazily popular, so nobody shared their holiday photos, nobody shared their best photos, no one wrote essays about their most recent promotion or the arrival of their new baby, about their wedding. 

We weren’t bombarded with all this information from acquaintances, from colleagues, from friends and family. Of course, if somebody we knew well had a major event happen to them, we’d hear about it, but we weren’t constantly exposed to everyone’s highlights all the time. It was a moment, and you could choose to look at it more, find out more or leave it. And of course, we have the choice – which posts we look at on social media, whether we look at them at all, whether we have an account at all and whether we use it. I quite rarely use social media now. I still have an account for participation in a Russian learning group but that’s about it. I’m just amazed at how frequently people congratulate themselves for getting into a university, getting a new job, getting married, having a baby…I know. These are happy events. You want to share. I get that you want to share them with your loved ones, but sometimes, I think it’s not just sharing it with your loved ones, but asking everybody to look at you, to get attention, to congratulate you. I also see posts that should really be private: about what a wonderful mother somebody is for Mother’s Day or a heartfelt birthday message posted publicly so that everyone sees it. And I find that bizarre. It’s almost as if the message isn’t so sincere, because if it were, why does everybody else need to see it? 

It seems that the message is carefully crafted to show off how wonderful the relationship is, rather than being genuine.  So it’s not really a message to that person at all, but a message to everyone. A performance for everyone.

Against "faking it 'till you you make it" (click here for the transcript)

The mere fact that it's always been a certain way isn't a strong enough justification for it to remain as such.

TRANSCRIPTION
Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’d like to talk to you about what happens when we challenge convention. I’ve noticed that people often react very negatively, very vehemently when a new idea is presented that goes against conventional wisdom, that suggests a different way of doing things, that’s not what people have been doing for a long time. Often, there’s an appeal to tradition – “Well, we’ve always done this, so it must be good”; “It’s always been this way, so we should keep doing it like this. There’s been no disaster, no catastrophe, so this is good enough.” But what if it can be better? There may be not be any catastrophe in some cases, but there may be no real benefit, and the results may be inferior to what you could achieve if you changed something.

I understand that new ideas should be challenged. I’m also against innovation for innovation’s sake. I don’t believe that what’s new, what’s contemporary is necessarily better than what’s old, what’s classic and I hate the popular narrative of progress, that we’ve come so far and that we’re so much more knowledgeable, so much wiser and more sophisticated than our ancestors. I don’t think that’s the case. I’m neither somebody who likes appeals to tradition nor am I in love with our contemporary world. I just think that if it’s obvious that something isn’t working, we should try to do better, and if evidence suggests that something new works better, I think that we should have an open mind and not become so vehement, not become so emotional and attached to what’s familiar that we don’t see clearly. 

For example, in language learning, there’s often very strong and almost angry pushback against natural methods, against learning through comprehensible input, against the idea that grammar doesn’t have to be taught explicitly. People say that it doesn’t work, that it’s for people who aren’t thoughtful, aren’t analytical, just want to have a good time, have fun, want edutainment and that teaching traditionally – teaching grammar explicitly – gets you results faster. But I don’t think we’re comparing the same thing. I think that in some cases, teaching grammar directly and doing the traditional drills may get you to perform faster on familiar tasks where you’ve learned the format and you know the cues, but I’m not at all convinced, based on what I’ve read, that it leads to language acquisition.

Language acquisition is slow. By nature, it’s going to require a lot of time, but it happens, and it can happen in a matter of a few years depending how far your native language is removed from your target language. The point is that it gets you there. It gets you to acquire that language, to understand it and to have good instincts about how to speak, to communicate naturally, whereas I’ve heard countless stories – I think we’ve all heard them – about people who’ve studied English formally since childhood as a second language and who still have trouble understanding a vary basic conversation and who don’t feel they can say a word fifteen years later, or sometimes twenty years later. Therefore, it’s clear to me that there’s something that doesn’t work about the traditional method.

Argumentum ad antiquitatem (click here for the transcript)

On the benefits of structure, deadlines, and a little pressure.

Goodbye dear listeners!

TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone, and welcome to Elsewhere with G. My name is Guyomar, and today I’d like to take you Elsewhere with me one last time. Yes, that’s right, this is the last episode of Elsewhere with G. Today, what I’d like to talk about is the places that structure can take us, that deadlines, that a little bit of pressure can take us. I don’t think this is a new idea. I’ve heard many people talk about the fact that when they have a whole day free, they tend to waste, or the longer they give themselves to complete something, the longer they tend to take, and for that reason, they tend to schedule important things and also limit the time for certain tasks because you’re more likely to be productive. And I have really seen the effects of structure, of scheduling, of having deadlines in the first half of this year.

Now, before this year, I didn’t really have that much structure and I had certain nebulous goals, for example, improve my Russian to the point where I can hold conversations on literary themes, or be in better shape…what else? Not let my Spanish and Italian become horrible. Create helpful, useful and interesting content for my students. I did a bit of all of this. You know, I was working a bit, I was learning a bit of Russian, I was fairly active, you know, I enjoyed hiking for example, but I wasn’t really that consistent for quite a while, and there was no structure in place. There was no pressure.

Then, this year, I changed a few things. Partly, things changed because of external forces. For example, I had more students requesting story listening, storytelling courses, so having these lessons booked, and knowing that I had to tell these students a story, that they counting to provide this service that they were paying for, has helped me be more productive in my writing than I’ve ever been, including at that time when I was a graduate student. I’ve regularly written stories, sometimes three or four a week, some better than others, but I’ve been writing, and now I have quite a collection of stories intended for language learners. That’s the first thing.

Also, now I have a schedule for when I eat. I know, I know, some of you think I’m crazy, but I fast regularly. I’ve been doing this for about, let’s see, about…it’s been two months. It’s the two-month anniversary of fasting. So, I do an easy intermittent fast most days, 16:8, and some days, I go up to 24 hours. Right now, I’m doing a 72-hour fast. That’s been very helpful as well, in terms of feeling healthy and more energetic. Knowing when I’m eating, scheduling meals, and also thinking in advance about what exactly is going into the meal. And I no longer cave to familial or social pressure, to just eat whatever, whatever’s there. For example, you know that I no longer eat pasta or bread, all that kind of stuff, so there’s a lot of structure in food as well, in eating.

With language learning, I’ve been taking a few lessons again. I’ve spoken to a few teachers, and I’ve decided that if I’m ever going to finish One Hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish, well, I need to have someone to whom I’m accountable. Someone who knows about Latin American literature, someone who can discuss these topics intelligently. So I’ll have classes once a week in Spanish, for now, and perhaps Russian as well. And I think that helps, you know…I don’t want to embarrass myself going into a class unprepared, with nothing to say, so there, the structure is useful to me, as well, even though I prefer spending most of my time reading, listening quietly, absorbing the language…

On structure, deadlines and pressure (final episode) (click here for the transcript)

Do you already speak English but want to improve your comprehension of the spoken language and fluency? Have you always loved good books, compelling narratives, and deep conversations? Then, you're in the right place. Here, I'll tell you stories, real stories from my own life, from those of friends, and even from the world of fiction, in clear, slightly simplified English. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad or strange, the stories will always be memorable. My goal is to help you acquire English and enjoy the process, by providing you with compelling "comprehensible input." Ideally, you'll want to spend more time with the language because listening to these stories will bring you pleasure.

Elsewhere with G

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